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Big Summit Fire, July 2020 Iron, Lincoln

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2020, 21:16 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2020 in Iron, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 2,948 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 54th largest in Utah since 2016 (of 165 with a page). Number 147 in United States in 2020, of 441.

Burnt area
2,948ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
1day
13 Jul 2020 – 13 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
13 Jul
2020
Heat detections
368
in a single hotspot: 366 MW
Danger at start
81
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
13.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1314

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
70km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Iron where it started
    2,398 ha reached on 13 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. Lincoln
    560 ha reached on 13 Jul
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
13 Jul 32.0 °C 10 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
14 Jul after 30.6 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
15 Jul after 31.0 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Jul after 28.7 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Jul after 29.9 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
18 Jul after 30.9 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Jul after 31.8 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Jul after 30.9 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Jul after 27.5 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jul after 26.2 °C 15 % 58 km/h 1.1 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 6 Jul 2020
After · 20 Jul 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 368Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Big Summit fire last?
It burned between 13 July 2020 and 13 July 2020: 1 day, according to the start date recorded by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) and the heat detections seen by satellite.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 2,948 hectares (29.5 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Iron (2,398 ha, 0.3 %); Lincoln (560 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC, public domain), NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United States. It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter is official and in the public domain. For past years it comes from MTBS (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity), run by the U.S. Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service, which map it on Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery. For the current and last year it comes from WFIGS at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC): incident perimeters mapped by fire crews, aircraft and imagery. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. County boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per county is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.